Spotted this uncommon variant of the 1963 Mercury Meteor Custom S33 coupe. At first glance, I thought this was a Mercury Comet. During the Space Race during this time, it’s interesting that American car companies named their vehicles after celestial bodies. This particular model is the S33 edition, which was a specially appointed two-door sedan featuring premium exterior trim and interior ameneties including bucket seats, and a center console.

The Mercury Meteor is an automobile that was produced by Mercury from 1961 to 1963. For 1961, the name was applied to low-end full-sized vehicles; for 1962 and 1963, the name was applied to Mercury’s mid-sized sedans, in a marketing attempt to appeal to the excitement surrounding the Space Race, before being discontinued. Introduced while Mercury as a marque was in flux, and never a solid marketplace performer in consumer sales, the Meteor remains more a side note than a well known Mercury product.

For 1962, Mercury marketing decided that the Monterey nameplate had better consumer recognition than the Meteor moniker as far as full-sized vehicles were concerned (despite the fact that the Meteor outsold the Monterey), and instead assigned the Meteor name to a new line of mid-sized cars based on the Ford Fairlane which, in turn, was based on a long-wheelbase version of the Ford Falcon chassis. This smaller, mid-sized Meteor filled the product gap between the full-sized Monterey and the compact, Ford Falcon-based Mercury Comet.